Both of these numbers will be multiplied to create a value for that category. (For instance, if you give Lincoln a 5 at Crisis Management with a 4 in importance, then he will have a 20 for Crisis Management). All the categories will be added up to create their overall score.

This should allow users to tailor their ranking to their own values and opinions. For instance, @Patine might favor peace/unity more than most people, and give that a high importance. Meanwhile @jvikings1 might see no special value in an action-oriented president, and so might give that category no value at all. Additionally, one can alter the Importance for each president, as some might argue that Pursuing Equal Justice for All was less important for Washington than it was for LBJ, since the zeitgeist was different.

When I do release this for your enjoyment, I'll make sure I fill it out with my academic opinions (as opposed to personal opinion, which is more biased). This way, if you agree with me, then you don't have to input anything.

It would be great if I could somehow get this up as a simplistic website. Maybe @admin_270 would like to add it to his website. Who knows. It would be cool if it created an average ranking for all of those that submit their ranking.

Sounds like a great idea! I don't have time to take on this right now, but I can help ask for assistance on the blog once you get a working spreadsheet going.

Thanks! I'm nearly done with it. I'll probably be done with it on Tuesday (busy weekend). Instead of making my academic opinion the default, I'm going to use the academic opinion from recent expert rankings. I think that makes more sense. So I have to change that. I also altered it to make "bad" and "terrible" give negative points, rather than less positive points.

My presidential ranker is almost done. I'm just going to consider some final categories. When I do. I'll post instructions, so you can create your own presidential ranking. Hopefully, it will move beyond an excel spreadsheet a become more integrated into a website.